The TV ratings on NBC for “Sunday Night Football” weren’t too pretty.
According to TVByTheNumbers, only 12.53 million people watched the Steelers beat the Chargers 24-17 while playing a third string quarterback. (RELATED: David Hookstead Is The True King In The North When It Comes To College Football)
That’s down substantially from last week, which generated 16.35 million viewers for the same slot.
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Well, that’s certainly not a great look for the NFL, but it is a little understandable. The Steelers are on their third quarterback, they’re not any good, the Chargers might be even worse and it just wasn’t a great game.
People love football, which explains north of 10 million viewers, but Charges vs. Steelers just isn’t going to fill the seats when both teams aren’t any good.
That might be harsh, but it’s the truth.
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The good news is that this is only one down “SNF” game for the NFL. Is getting only 12 million viewers ideal?
Absolutely not, but I wouldn’t fret over one bad game. The TV ratings for the NFL have been insanely strong this year.
They’ve been through the roof. Obviously, you’re going to have some occasional dips when bad teams find themselves in primetime games.
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The NFL just needs to dust off the bad ratings and prepare for next week. As long as it doesn’t happen again, there’s nothing to sweat about.